by Ben Toalson | Jun 2, 2014 | In The Boat
During the past few weeks I’ve experienced both the pull from family away from my work, and from my work away from my family. I try really hard to keep family time and work time very separate, but these past few weeks have been somewhat of an exception. I found myself often feeling that yucky feeling of stealing time away from one or the other.
The Night Shift
A few weeks ago I instituted a night-time work shift in order to catch up on some personal projects that have been dragging along. I sat down, looked at my schedule, and decided that the only way I was going to make meaningful progress was to work for a couple of hours four nights per week. When I made the case to my wife, a conversation which was much shorter than it should have been, she tentatively agreed and I jumped right into my work.
Now, I wanted to make sure I was still getting plenty of sleep, so I started right after we put the boys down to bed. If you have young kids, you know that putting the kids in their bed is only half a quarter of the battle. My wife ended up being the one who had to endure several interruptions and remind them 30 times about bed-time rules. Regardless of how much “agreed upon” freedom I had to work during that time, the feeling, that I should be sharing the responsibility that my wife was carrying on her own, kept growing and seeping into my attention.
Okay Dear, You Talk, I’ll Pretend to Listen
There were other distractions… Over the years we’ve found the great value in those last few hours after the kids are down, before we go to bed, to “catch up” and get on the same page. It’s amazing how much time you can spend in a house with another person and not have a meaningful conversation. We’d gotten into the healthy habit of talking about our days, talking about our calendars, etc. as we went about our night-time routines. Having not discussed very specific rules about my newly instituted work time, my wife expected at least to be able to get a few sentences in with me.
When I’m working, doesn’t really matter what it is, I have trouble focusing on anything else. For things like writing and developing this is especially true, but even for drawing and illustrating and things like that, I get so sucked in that I have a difficult time engaging the world around me. My wife, rightfully so because we hadn’t talked about it before hand, began to feel increasingly frustrated when she was not able to get even a fraction of meaningful attention from me.
Abandon Ship
It wasn’t too long before I abandon the night hours realizing that we hadn’t established it as a sustainable work practice, even on a temporary basis.
There are times when we become too relaxed about managing these exceptions in our schedules, and we need to snap back into being intentional about scheduling, communicating and defining work time and family time expectations. The reality is that sometimes our work load will require us to work extra hours from time to time. Rather than be surprised by these occurrences and let them cause undue stress, expect them and make a plan for managing and implementing exceptional work time.
Here are some intentional steps you can take when planning for extra work time:
Identify Your Exceptions
The first and most important thing you can do is to define your exceptions. For work time, it’s generally a temporary scheduling of work that falls outside of the normal working hours. If you don’t have a clearly defined work schedule, one of the best ways to identify exception hours is to ask the question, ‘Could I sustain these as regularly scheduled hours indefinitely?’
Define the Purpose
Exceptions in our working hours are not meant to be arbitrary. There has to be some goal or purpose for the exception. Ask the question, ‘What do I want to have accomplished by the time I’m done working these extra hours?’ This goes back to not being able to sustain it indefinitely. Without having a goal and a purpose in mind, there is nothing to drive that time and it opens you up to the risk of utilizing that time indefinitely or until you or your family becomes burned out.
Set an End Date
This is an important part of your exit strategy. Having a deadline on your goals and knowing that this exception is going to end, provides ample motivation for using the time wisely and effectively. It also provides reassurance to our family that they will not have to endure the potential burden of your extra working time forever.
Make a Strong Case
Before implementing exception work time, it is obviously important that you have a thorough and meaningful conversation with all those who will be affected by it. Maybe that’s just your spouse, or maybe it’s your spouse and kids. Before you go to them, have all of the previous points already in mind. You may even want to make a presentation that you can share with them in an official family meeting, including graphs and charts representing your investments and projections. It sounds silly to be “overly prepared” but the more informed you are, the more informed your family feels, the more you will all be on the same page when it comes to protecting that extra work time.
Gain Consensus From Everyone
Having everyone on board is vital. Even a decision not to have the extra work time causes the responsibility for the consequence of that decision (good or bad) to shift from only you to everyone involved in the decision. If everyone is on board with the decision to institute the exceptional work time, not only does it allow the responsibility of the outcome to be shared, but it provides greater accountability for the person doing the work.
Make the Rules
This is also a very important step. You must clearly outline the parameters. It’s easier to ask questions here and make arguments for or against certain rules, than it will be to work out those details when you’re in the middle of your work. This also serves to help everyone feel more on the same page and more on board with the decision.
Stick to the Plan
Once you’ve set goals and deadlines and made rules for your work, stick to the plan. In the hopefully rare case you need to do something like this again, it will help immensely if the people in the boat with you feel like they can count on you to follow what you agreed upon. If you need to change the rules, deadlines or goals, rather than make an executive decision (unless power has been granted to you to do so) have another meeting and make a case for those changes.
Nowhere are the lines between work and family more blurred, than in situations where we work for ourselves or from home. Allowing your family to be a part of the process of managing some of the work logistics can open the door to a better understanding of the role your work plays in your family’s life and well being, and ultimately serves to protect both.
by Ben Toalson | Jun 1, 2014 | HD Wallpapers Collab with Helen, portfolio
“If not for the sunset, we’d never see the stars.”
This is my first piece in a collaboration with photographer Helen Montoya. When I looked at this picture, I was reminded of the beauty of the sunset. Metaphorically, when the sun “sets” on certain aspects of our lives, it doesn’t seem very beautiful and can be quite challenging. I like to believe that all of the sunsets in our lives allow us to see a new kind of beauty that is only possible against the dark shades of night. I find that embracing this reality rather than fearing it, aids my mind and heart when facing troubling or challenging times, so that instead of being consumed by darkness, I focus my eyes instead on lights.
by Ben Toalson | May 19, 2014 | In The Boat
The Daily Struggle
Today is a struggle. I get up early most days because if I don’t get a jump on the day I end up losing more time and productivity because of all of the noise in my world. Most of this noise comes from my wonderful children, playing, laughing and fighting downstairs, and my inner struggle to stay focused when I want to go rescue my wife from a stand-off with the kids. Five in the morning is a sleepy hour, but the kids are still asleep and the house is nice and quiet. We don’t have the kids in childcare, so my wife and I split the kid duties. She takes care of them in the morning and I take care of them in the afternoon. By six the kids are up and I can hear the noise of them outside my bedroom door, stomping around looking for shoes (we are constantly looking for shoes in this house), and I am working away.
Morning Workflow Interruptions
Something I left undone during the weekend becomes my first distraction of the morning, as I walk away from my work to take care of something that would have taken me 5 minutes to do the day before, but takes me 15 minutes this morning because my brain is still upstairs at my computer. I return and stare at the screen for a few seconds before reorienting myself around whatever it was I was doing before I left.
Not too long after I am given the choice to walk my oldest to school or stay home with the 4 younger. I choose the former which takes just as long, but is mentally a little less challenging.
“Working” Through Naptime
I get home, go upstairs and dive back into my work. It’s nice for a few hours. Then lunchtime hits and I can sense the chaos downstairs. Lunch is followed by a nap-time routine that sometimes resembles a mini-circus. Nap-time begins at 11am and here I know that I have and hour and a half before my shift begins and I am responsible for the kids, and maybe, just maybe they’ll sleep until 2pm.
My Turn
Once the kids are “down” my wife enters the room and begins her work. The remainder of her shift is spent going back and forth between our home office and the boys’ rooms, trying to settle them down. Then it’s my turn to watch the boys. This usually means I’m done working for the day, but if I have deadlines I didn’t meet or people that I need to follow up with, those things become distractions against watching the boys.
And Repeat… And Repeat… And Repeat
Watching the kids for the afternoon, cooking dinner, spending time together as a family, the night-time routine… all of these are wonderful things we get to do every day, but leave us exhausted. We make the most of the time we have once the kids are down for the night, trying to spend a little time together, getting the house ready for the following day, getting some work done, then we retire for the night so we can do it all over the next day. And the next day, and the next…
Working from home with kids is hard. Getting momentum and traction for our businesses AND maintaining a healthy home life don’t seem to want to work together. Is it always going to be this difficult? Are we just stuck?
Is It Going to Be Like This Forever?
Sometimes what we are experiencing today feels permanent. We know that it’s not permanent. We know that things change and that our future will look different and our past experience proves this to us, but what we are experience today is most immediate in our minds and tends to drown out everything else. At best, the feeling of permanence is a nagging annoyance in the back of our minds, at worst, it can feel like the walls are closing in and leave us crippled. Whatever your circumstances, navigating through these feelings can be challenging and can keep us from our best work.
Here are some of the things I do to manage these emotions so I can get back to work:
Let Your Mind Time-Travel
Daydreaming is a good word here. Making a regular practice of imagining our future and recalling our past is a good way to condition our minds to hold our present reality more loosely. When you think about the past, ask yourself: What has changed? What did I want then that I have now? What was difficult then that is easy now? When you imagine your future, ask: What is difficult about today that will look completely different tomorrow? What are some things that I want now that I will have in the future? You’ve got to be careful with this one though. You can build a great deal of discontentment for your present circumstances if you look at your past or future in the wrong light.
Plan for the Pivot Points
Pivot points are the little moments in your timeline that add up to equal a big change in your circumstances. Your kids starting school or getting involved in extra-curricular activities, a new client or product for your business, your children growing more capable of handling certain types of responsibility, growth in your income. What pivot points do you foresee? Make a plan for these pivot points. Ask questions like: What am I going to do with the extra time this change might give me? or, Where am I going to make up the time that I’m losing from this change? or, What tasks might I begin to delegate or pay someone else to take care of to free up more of my time? Just thinking on these things is beneficial, and having a plan for how you will manage these changes further reinforces the idea that things WILL change.
Change What You Can Today
Is there something you can change or sacrifice today to make your present circumstances more livable? I feel the most grief in the areas where I’ve built bad habits and have poor discipline. One example (something I’m doing right now, in fact) is waiting until the last minute to work on my writing. This is not only stressful, but doesn’t lead me to my best work. I’m usually racing against the clock to get it done and end up doing it on the most inconvenient day at the most inconvenient time. So I’m sacrificing some of the things I enjoy doing at night, so that I can get up early and write every day. Building a daily writing habit will not only put me ahead on my writing schedule, but will also allow my ideas to flow more freely.
Embrace Your Current Season
Amidst all of the struggle of working from home with kids, I LOVE that I can stop what I’m doing at any time and see them. I love that I make my own schedule, so I can be present when they need me most. I love that I don’t have to clock in somewhere and spend my time building someone else’s dream. Can you find something that you love about your current circumstances? Can you look back at your past situation, or at others’ present situations for some perspective? Are there little things about your routine, your daily cup (or pot) of coffee, the random interruption of children, that you find endearing? Let these things help you to mentally and emotionally re-frame the season that you’re in today.
by Ben Toalson | May 12, 2014 | In The Boat
How Important is Belief?
I’ve often heard and even spoken a lot about how important belief is for accomplishing goals. For this reason I have practiced self-belief, visualization, writing down and carrying my goals with me, etc. But, as helpful as those things can be, I don’t know if I can truly attribute my accomplishments to the belief that I could actually do them.
The Two Types of Belief
For my purposes I’m creating a distinction between two types of belief that come into play when trying to accomplish a goal. I’m going to define them here so I can bring them in later:
1. Experiential Belief: I believe I can do this because I know I’ve done it before and I am an expert. If you are among the fortunate group of adults who knows how to tie your shoes, you probably don’t wake up in the morning wondering whether or not you’re going to be able to tie your shoes that day. It’s a given. This is the type of belief that comes from a repeated experience of your own capability to accomplish a goal.
2. Speculative Belief: I believe I can do this because, though I’ve never done it before, I’ve demonstrated the skills and the expertise necessary in areas similar to this goal. For example, if you can tie your shoe, you can probably tie a bow for a gift package. Or, if you’re really good at drawing pictures of cats, you can probably draw a picture of a tiger. This is a belief that the “stuff” you need to accomplish a goal is inside of you, though you do not have the experiential proof.
These types of belief are great motivators. Believing that you can and will accomplish a goal…
But what if you don’t have that knowing belief? What if the question ‘can I do this?’ returns a huge question mark, or a ‘maybe’, or an ‘I don’t know’?
“I Can’t Believe I Just Did That”
I have this experience often where I look back at a project I finished and wonder to myself how I did it. Most recently I spent nearly 20 hours working on an artistic piece for a client. It was a huge project and to be honest, when I look at it, when I watch the time lapse video I made of the final piece, I almost can’t imagine that was ME doing it. It’s like it was someone else.
Another example of this is some of the home improvement projects I’ve taken on. We redesigned our kitchen, installing tile floors, tile backsplash on the walls, sanded and stained the cabinets, installed new cabinets, installed can lights… when I walk into that kitchen it’s hard to believe that I did all of that.
Probably the strongest example is the children. How they are still alive today is a mystery to me. After the birth of our first and those preliminary days in the hospital, the nurse came in and said, ‘Ok, it’s time to send you guys home.’ And even though I knew we were supposed to take this little human baby home to live with us, I almost said out-loud, ‘wait… don’t we need some kind of certification or something? I think he’d be safer here. We should just leave him here with you and we will just come visit.’ But here we are 7 years later and I really couldn’t tell you how we got here.
Despite Belief…
Except that we just did. I couldn’t tell you that I had experiential or even speculative belief that I could help raise another human being, but I just did. If I waited until I had an unwavering belief or could be convinced that I would be successful in raising a child before I would let them send a baby home with me, we’d still probably be in the hospital… seven years later. The bill would be astronomical.
It makes me wonder, what am I not doing today because I’m holding out for belief?
Disproving Disbelief
Now I want to contrast this with disbelief. There is a huge difference between saying ‘I don’t know if I can do that’ and ‘I know I can’t do that.’ The voice that says that you cannot do something is a liar. Here’s why:
1. You don’t know everything.
That’s it. You have no idea what you might be capable of if you practiced, over and over, that thing you believe you cannot do. You have no idea what technological or scientific breakthroughs might be on the horizon that will make what seems impossible today possible tomorrow. You have no idea what might change in your circumstances. You don’t know what the future holds. You don’t know everything. So, though you may not be able to say, ‘Yes, I can certainly do that!’, you certainly cannot say, ‘No, I cannot do that.’ At the very worst there is a low probability of success, but there’s still a chance!
Believe If You Can, But Try!
It’s great to have belief. Belief can be a very helpful ally, but if you don’t allow yourself to work toward or even set goals unless you believe you can accomplish them; if you don’t make it about the doing, even in the face of doubt, the world will miss out on the amazing things that you never knew or couldn’t have guessed you have inside of you. Because maybe there is greatness in you. Maybe there is a masterpiece in you. As long as there is a chance, I say go for it!
by Ben Toalson | May 5, 2014 | Case Studies, In The Boat, portfolio
Free Wallpaper Download (2560×1440)
Commissioned Hand Lettering Piece
I was recently commissioned to do an art piece in a style I am growing very fond of which combines illustration with a form of lettering that uses negative space to form the letters. I was asked to use the picture below of Claudio Sanchez, front-man for Coheed And Cambria, as inspiration and to hand-letter on this image the following lyrics from four of their songs:
“Good Eye, Sniper. I’ll shoot, you run”
“Would you run down past the fence? FBI!”
“Your father’s dead, he passed in his sleep”
“One Eighty Four, lets burn it down”
Gathering Inspiration
The first thing I do is to take some time to study my subject. I listen to the songs, imagining how the style might manifest itself into a unique expression of each word. I learn about the band, their origins and the music they’ve produced over the years. I learn about the fans and the culture that has grown around this band and the stories and messages of their music. I spend about a week doing this before I even put pencil to paper.
Writing Out The Lyrics
Simply writing out the lines that I will be lettering helps to clear my mind of any preconceived ideas I might have about how the words should be arranged or what styles the words should take. In this step I make marks and boxes, sometimes combining words or matching words I feel should have equal emphasis.
After getting a feel for the pacing of the words, I write them out again, this time making line breaks to separate the words and word combinations, further defining the hierarchy. I am careful not to think too far ahead to how the words might be arranged in the image, so that the hierarchy remains intact.
Preliminary Word Placement
This is actually one of the places where I can tend to get a little stuck. The question bounces around in my head, “What if I put the words in the wrong place?” I could sit and stare at that outline all day long, but instead I accept that my first attempt at placing the words is probably not going to look anything like the end product and that sets me free to just draw. I sketch, erase, sketch, erase, mark out, etc. until I feel like I’ve got something close to what I imagine the finished project will look like.
More Placement Work
Now I’ve got a better idea of where the words fit into the composition and my goal is to continue working until I’ve come as close to what will be on the final draft as possible.
Half Size Drafts
These drafts are much closer to the final version. They are 12″ x 12″, half the size of what the final version will be.
1st Draft
This draft focuses specifically on the letter styles and further hones in on the word placement. I only use pencil so that I can make erasures and discover more quickly what the final layout will look like. This is the last step in which I might make placement and style decisions. After this one, they are set.
2nd Draft
This draft is meant to basically be a smaller version of the final. I focus on every detail and ink it as I will the final. This draft is great for helping me to work through my jitters and get the mistakes out of my system, as well as helping me become even more familiar with the styles and placement.
Final Piece
Using the 2nd draft as a reference I use a grid system to transfer and lightly sketch the half size image to the full size page.
As I did with the 2nd draft, I take the following steps:
1. Draw grid/guide lines
2. Lightly sketch the outline and basic details
3. Write the words more or less where they will appear
4. Go back phrase by phrase and draw each letter
5. Make final adjustments, erasures and re-sketches before going to the inking phase
6. Slowly and meticulously outline each letter, just on the outside edge of the letter. Here I also line the outline and other drawn elements
7. Erase the pencil lines leaving only the ink
8. Slowly and meticulously outline each letter with a thicker line that will serve as a buffer for the filling that I also do in this step
9. Draw the face detail and fill in shapes and lines
10. Make any minor necessary adjustments and final erasures
11. Sign it
Here is a time-lapse video that condenses the 7.5 hours I spent on this draft alone into 5 minutes. I also composed an original instrumental song to accompany the video. The song is called “Falling Through the Center.”
Package and Ship It
I include the 1st and 2nd drafts, the final piece, and a hand-written note, wrap it up carefully with edge protectors, bubble wrap and packing peanuts to ensure that the contents make it to the client unharmed. As a bonus for the client, I create and send an HD wallpaper along with the final message and invoice.
I Can’t Wait to Do This Again
I will continue to work on personal projects in this same style and already have several in mind, some for which I will make case studies like this.
For more content like this you can check out my process page that talks about the process I use for designing logos or websites, or you can check out another case study from a logo project I took on a few months ago.
